Farm and function

Published 4:00 am, Friday, June 5, 1998

Here's your chance to go to a world-class institution of higher education and take a crash course in art history. For free. And as a special bonus, class is held outdoors.

Once a month, docents at Stanford University offer 1-1/4-hour guided tours of some of the more than 45 magnificent works of sculpture on the campus.

Imagine sitting on a bench this close to the life-size figures of George Segal's "Gay Liberation," while hearing how the models were coated with Vaseline and then wrapped in plaster bandages to make the molds.

It's a pleasant jaunt through the sandstone halls of learning, and you will be learning. These docents are so well trained about the artworks that they frequently improvise tours (no canned spiels here), depending on the group's interest.

"That's what keeps it fresh for us," says Menlo Park resident Judy Amsbaugh, lead sculpture docent. And she ought to know. She's been giving tours since the docent program began in 1969.

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She is dedicated. "Anything we can do in the way of words or body language to get people to see the art, we do," she says.

The docents are not paid for their contributions of time and knowledge, but Amsbaugh believes they are amply compensated by the opportunity to sit in on Stanford art history classes throughout the year. "And we get so much back from the groups. It's fun. We love to get the viewer's reaction."

The sculptures are all part of the massive outdoor art collection started by Stanford's beloved art professor Albert Elsen, who died in 1995.

One of the sculptures visited on a recent ramble with Amsbaugh is a towering, elegant stainless steel piece by James Rosati named "Column I," which Professor Elsen had dearly wished to acquire for the campus collection, but was unable to. As we approached it, Amsbaugh became visibly emotional, saying "I'm not sure I can do this. It's a memorial."

It turns out that after Elsen's death, the steel tower was purchased and donated to Stanford in his name by staff, students and friends.

Such acts of generosity account for the presence of all the outdoor sculptures, in fact. "No university funds that would have been used elsewhere have gone to purchase sculptures," says Amsbaugh. "They're all donated."

The outdoor settings contribute a great deal to the appreciation of these three-dimensional pieces, although Amsbaugh says, "It's very brave, I think, to keep them outdoors."

Under changing El Nino skies, light and shade play amazing tricks on the contours of the sculptures. On one side of Albers' "Stanford Wall" are rows of narrow steel rods, affixed horizontally in varying arrangements. When the sun is directly overhead, the rods throw perfect rectangular shadows that seem to tint some of the white bricks gray.

A tour with Amspaugh is eye-opening. For one thing, she's a walking quote bank who has an anecdote to tell about nearly every piece. Example: Calder's reply to an amateur critic who disagreed with the artist's use of bolts to assemble his large black steel "Falcon." "He said, "If you don't like them, don't look at them,' " Amsbaugh twinkles.

For another thing, by the time you complete the tour, you will find yourself looking at the whole world with new (open) eyes. Suddenly the incessant construction projects on the Stanford campus are not so much a distraction as a reflection of all the works of art.

Stare for a while at the tricky shadows on Arnaldo Pomodoro's "Three-Panel Bas-Relief" on the outside wall of the Nathan Cummings Art Building, and pretty soon your gaze shifts upward, taking in the looming Hoover Tower behind the building, and the swinging yellow arm of a huge crane at work on the earthquake retrofit of Green Library next door. It all looks so vivid and sculptural.

Make no mistake, though. The intrusion of heavy equipment is not all for the good of viewing art. Henry Moore's

"Large Torso: Arch," the first acquisition in the contemporary outdoor collection, is disgracefully obscured by the chain-link gate of the library construction site.

And the large potted plants shoved up against Calder's

"Falcon," to prevent skateboarders from doing what you might call "extreme exposure to the arts" on its slightly canted base, act like camouflage. (A new cobblestone base is being contemplated.)

Both situations are temporary, of course. And other sites are very nobly treated. Several of the pieces were installed with the guidance of the artists, many of whom are still living. Berkeley artist Bruce Beasely, for example, had input on the siting of his glistening stainless steel sculpture "Vanguard," according to Amsbaugh.

Sculptor Kenneth Snelson couldn't be present for the installation of his delightful "Mozart I," a Tinker Toy confusion of polished steel pipes strung together in mid air with steel cable, but he sent precise details on its assembly. Seems it was shipped in pieces, and students from the engineering and art departments had the pleasure of constructing the thing.

And Moore was said to be pleased with the location of his

"Large Torso: Arch" near the similarly-shaped sandstone arches of the Main Quad, according to Amsbaugh. (Good thing he didn't live to see the chain-link fence.)

But possibly no one could be happier with the siting of his or her art than the unknown art student who created the whimsical fabrications of concentric plywood ellipses suspended by wires from tall poles. Amsbaugh studied them for a minute, where they are perched for now in a patio that also features the permanent installation of Joan Miro's "Oiseau."

She said, "The next generation comes along. They can say to their family and friends, "I exhibited with Miro.' " &lt;

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